


So Sick Of This Lonely Air

by IndigoNight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 02:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4417952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IndigoNight/pseuds/IndigoNight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been months since Loki had first made the offer. Months of discussions, explanations, and planning. Sam is sure. He's exhilarated, and he's terrified. </p><p>"I'm sure, Thor. I want this. I want to have wings, real wings. Wings that no one can ever take from me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadith/gifts).



> This is a gift for Shadith for the Marvel POC fic exchange.
> 
> So, Shadith, I want to thank you from the depths of my soul for offering me the prompt you did and bringing this pairing into my life. I feel as though you have given me the gift. That being said, this is not the fic you asked for, this is the sequel to the fic you asked for written to stand alone. I hope you like it anyway. I added bonus wingfic just for fun.
> 
> Warning for semi-detailed tattoo-ing using non-electric tools, if that's an issue for anyone.
> 
> Title taken from the song Make It To Me by Sam Smith.

"Are you certain you wish to go through with this?" 

Sam rolls his eyes, fondly tolerant. It's sweet that they keep asking; they want to make sure he understands that this is a significant decision. "Yes, Thor," he reiterates, once again.

Thor nods. "Very well."

It has been months since Loki had first made the offer. Months of discussions, explanations, and planning. Sam is sure. He's exhilarated, and he's terrified. 

Thor laughs, warm and full, and pulls Sam into his arms. It's like being enveloped in a cloud of sunlight and Sam leans into him irresistibly. "You're biting your nails," Thor murmurs in his ear and Sam pulls back enough to narrow his eyes at him. "You do that when you're nervous." 

Sam wrinkles his nose. "I can be nervous and still be sure," he points out. "I'm sure, Thor. I want this. I want to have wings, real wings. Wings that no one can ever take from me."

Thor nods seriously. He lifts a hand, tracing his fingers lightly along the line of Sam's jaw. "Then it is time to come in. Loki is ready."

Sam pulls out of Thor's arms as he nods. He stands there, taking in the vast New Mexico sky around them. It's just past dawn and the sky is a riot of soft yellows and brilliant pinks along the horizon, deepening to pale blue over their heads. It's breathtaking, and soon it will be his. He takes a deep breath and nods again, more to himself than to Thor. "Okay," he says, "let's do it."

Thor leads the way down from the roof into what had been the Smith Motors building. Thor had purchased it after he'd permanently moved to Earth. He'd remodeled it, turning the old garage into a bedroom and adding blinds to the windows of the round central room for some privacy. Sam hadn't expected to, but he loves it. He'd always been a man of the city, but there is something about the small town and the vast open sky, and even the odd little building where Thor had chosen to make his home away from New York and the Avengers and all that their day to day lives entailed. 

Loki is waiting in the main room. The blinds are drawn over most of the walls of windows, allowing the sunlight in without exposing them to the eyes of passersby. There is a table laid out with an array of tools, carefully arranged. Loki stands beside the table, his long fingers running over the tools, checking them deftly and repeatedly. 

"Looks like I'm not the only one who's nervous," Sam teases. It's odd, even after all these months, to see Loki dressed in jeans; it's a rare sight, as Loki prefers slacks at the least, if not a finely tailored suit. But Loki had pointed out that this could get messy, and so he'd forgone his usual fine clothes in favor of a pair of worn jeans and one of Thor's old button down shirts, rolled up to his elbows. 

Loki smiles at them, his fingers flitting over the tools one final time. There's an excitement to the twitch of his fingers, and a delighted glint in his eyes. "Are you ready?" he asks. 

"As I'll ever be." Sam can't help but grin. He crosses his arms, peeling his shirt up and over his head. He can feel both of their eyes on him and a shiver of delight runs down his spine. It's still amazing, unbelievable really, that two gods would look at him like that even once, let alone every day. 

Thor's hands settle on Sam's hips, large and warm and strong. The prickle of Thor's beard makes goose flesh rise on the back of Sam's neck and Sam can't help but hum at the sensation. Thor squeezes his hips before guiding him over to the waiting chair. 

Sam straddles the chair, bracing his forearms on the back of it, holding his spine carefully stiff and straight. He listens to Thor and Loki moving behind him. He knows the soft rustle of Thor combing his fingers through Loki's hair, tying it back for him, listens to the gentle scrape of Thor's lips against Loki's temple, over the mark that hides there under Loki's glamour. Then Thor moves away, retreating across the room toward the kitchen at its far side, the tread of his boots heavy enough for Sam to track without looking. 

Loki's fingers trace over the curve of Sam's back, mapping the outline of his muscles with a delicate touch. He spreads a slick, cool gel over Sam's skin, cleaning and preparing it. "This will hurt," he warns, not for the first time. "And once the process is begun, it must be completed."

Sam laughs. "Not my first tattoo," he reminds. 

He can hear the dry smirk in Loki's voice. "This is no ordinary tattoo."

"I can take it." Sam instinctively straightens up further, puffing up a little at the implied slight.

"Of that we have no doubt," Thor reassures. There is laughter in his voice, and he may be laughing at Sam, just a little, but Sam doesn't really mind. Thor is holding a glass in one hand, and his silver flask in the other. He tips a little of the clear fluid into the glass, hardly even a full finger, and hands it over to Sam. 

Sam takes it slowly, sniffing it suspiciously. He has seen what Asgardian alcohol could do to mortals, and privately he's grateful that Thor hasn't offered him a larger dose. Thor toasts him with the flask and a cheerful grin before downing a sip himself, and Sam follows suit. It's far sweeter than Sam had expected, and it goes down surprisingly smooth. Almost immediately a warmth lights up in the pit of his stomach and he can feel his limbs loosening. 

Thor settles himself in the chair facing Sam's so that they are only a few inches apart. He reaches out, gripping Sam's hand in his own larger one. For a moment, Sam is tempted to pull away, to play macho, to take insult at Thor's gesture. But he quashes that urge as a foolish one, because there is no insult to be found, because if they did not truly believe that Sam could take it they would not be doing this, and because Sam _likes_ holding Thor's hand. 

"Ready?" Loki asks, his hands still on Sam's back, soothing muscles that are jumpy with nerves. 

Sam's mouth is dry, despite the drink he's just swallowed, so he nods.

The first puncture is a sharp, surprising sting. Sam tries to jerk reflectively and Thor's hands tighten around his arms, holding him still. Loki doesn't stop, his hands sure and steady as he drives the ink into Sam's skin. Loki has spent days preparing this ink, mixing and chanting things that Sam doesn't understand and thinks it's probably better that he doesn't understand; the tools too, an array of long, wickedly sharp needles made out of what looks like bone, a handful of combs but with evenly spaced metal teeth, things that look like chisels and a small hammer with an ornately carved head. 

He doesn't know which tool Loki is using, or what their different purposes are, and he tries not to guess. After the initial shock of it, the pain doesn't seem that bad, just odd. Loki was right, this isn't like an ordinary tattoo, but it isn't completely different either. Time passes and Sam feels himself relaxing, the pain dulling down to just a steady, rhythmic pressure as Loki works. 

Thor's hands smooth up and down Sam's arms, entertaining himself as much as he's soothing or holding Sam still, and it's a nice counterpoint to the ache of the punctures in his back. Thor's gaze shifts from Sam up and over his head to Loki periodically, and Sam knows he's watching over them both, monitoring them. Loki is performing a massive feat of magic, and even at full strength the procedure will be draining to him. So Thor watches over them both, his reassuring presence filling the room like an over sized security blanket. 

It feels odd to Sam, almost wrong, for them to be working serious magic in the bright morning sunlight of New Mexico. When he'd asked if they would need to do the ritual at midnight or something, Loki had blinked at him in puzzled confusion; Thor, who has a better awareness of Midgardian concepts of magic thanks to his Avengers popular culture education, had laughed. Once Thor had stopped laughing and attempted to explain to Loki where Sam's question had come from, Loki had in turn explained to Sam that only certain types of magic were connected to celestial events. He'd also pointed out that given the nature of the procedure, and the importance of being able to see what he was doing, that the low light and smoky incense Sam imagined would be wildly impractical. 

And so Sam sits, shirtless, with the bright morning sunlight streaming through the windows that surround them. As Loki works, the pain begins to grow sharp again. He isn't sure if the alcohol Thor gave him is wearing off, or if the continued abuse to his skin is making it more sensitive, or if it's the magic taking hold, but the pain grows. His nerve endings are set alight, a slow, spreading burn that seems to roll up and down his spine like a shiver. He grits his teeth, letting out a low hiss. 

Thor squeeze his hands again. He stands, leaning over Sam's shoulder to look at his back. "Well," Thor observes with a grin as he sits back down, "Loki's artistry is admirable. Even should this fail to work, at the very least, you will have a most impressive tattoo." The pounding against Sam's back pauses, for just the briefest moment, and Sam can imagine exactly the look Loki is shooting Thor. "It will work, of course," Thor adds hastily.

Sam tries very hard to laugh without moving his upper body; he isn't sure he succeeds, but Loki's hands remain steady and firm as they resume their work. "Well, I have been itching for a cool new tattoo," he confesses. His chest has begun to tighten with the building pain in his back, and he's grateful for Thor's distraction. 

Thor's fingers seem to know instinctively just when to tighten before Sam can twitch and disrupt Loki's work. But between those moments they are loose and gentle, stroking up and down the smooth skin of Sam's arms. They regularly come to settle against the mark on the inside of Sam's wrist, and Thor's blunt thumb traces the outline of the winged shape. The movement is by now habit, instinctual and, as always, it sends a jolt through Sam that is very different from pain. 

"Have I ever told you," Thor muses, when the silence has gone on too long and Sam is beginning to tense again, "about the time Loki spent on Alfheim?" The sly grin on Thor's face and the way he directs it over Sam's shoulder at Loki tells Sam that this is going to be a good story. 

Thor loves to tell stories, which is a good thing, because he has many to tell and he is _good_ at it. The low, sonorous rhythm of his voice is intoxicating, and it easily lulls Sam into a state of near hypnosis as Thor spins stories of far off places that should be straight out of a fairytale but Sam knows are true - at least mostly. 

He loses track of the time, letting himself float on the sound of Thor's voice and the steady beat of Loki's work against his back. 

Eventually, Loki murmurs, "nearly there." Thor's eyes are on Loki, a faint line embedded between his eyebrows that tells Sam it's a good thing that they're almost done, and not just because Sam's endurance is running out. 

Loki makes a soft sound when he finishes, somewhere between a low hum of triumph and a sigh of relief. Sam listens as Loki's tools clatter back to the table and he knows without seeing that Loki is leaning tiredly against it. 

Sam wants to move. Partially, he wants to look at Loki, to reassure himself that Loki hasn't overexerted himself, and partially he simply wants to move. The sun has only just reached its zenith in the sky, but Sam finds himself feeling exhausted as though he hasn't slept for days. Thor gives Sam's hand one more squeeze before standing and leaving Sam's line of sight. 

Sam sits there, slumped over the back of his chair, tired and aching while his back throbs, and he listens to them move. He hears the tools clatter again, and the sound of water running. He thinks he might have dozed off a little because he blinks and Thor is back, gently guiding him up and out of the chair. Thor catches him when he stumbles, and leads him out of the large showroom with it's many bright, sunny windows, into the blissfully cool, dark former garage, now insulated and converted into a bedroom containing a bed big enough for two gods and their mortal boyfriend. 

Sam collapses onto the bed as Thor guides him down onto his stomach. The sheets are soft and the pillows that Sam smashes his face into smell like Thor's favorite strawberry shampoo. After a moment he rolls his head to the side and is pleased to find Loki already in the bed with him. Loki looks worn out, and there's a faint flush to his cheeks, but his glamour is still firmly in place and he doesn't look hollow and sick in the way that he does when he has pushed his magic too far.

Loki is curled on his side facing Sam, watching him with heavy lidded eyes. Sam shifts enough to free his hand from under his own body and reaches out, gently tucking a strand of hair that has pulled itself loose from its braid back behind Loki's ear. "Thank you," he says quietly, low and warm and serious. 

Loki laughs softly, catching Sam's hand and pressing a kiss to his fingertips. "Do not thank me yet," he dismisses. "Wait until you know they work."

Sam just smiles at him, loose limbed and heavy as the endorphins kick in. He'd lost track of Thor, but isn't surprised when he feels Thor's large hands on his back, carefully spreading a salve over the abused skin and covering it with a large gauze bandage. 

The bed is soft beneath him, and Thor's hands are familiar and reassuring. Loki's breath is even and slow, his body warm, just close enough that Sam can feel his heat. And it's so easy to fall into this, this fairytale life that has found him and swept him up into it.

He closes his eyes, the lids too heavy to hold open anymore. He threads his fingers through Loki's, squeezing them as he drifts off into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

"Alright, let's do this." Sam shakes out his shoulders, muscles loosening in preparation. He can feel the buzz of adrenalin and excitement in his veins. 

"Whenever you're ready," Loki prompts placidly. He's lounging in one of the lawn chairs circled around the firepit , his posture casual and faintly amused. Thor, standing by Loki's side and idly twirling Mjolnir, gives Sam a grin and an encouraging nod. 

Sam takes a deep breath, nodding in return as he turns to face the open sky. He stands on top of the short wall encircling the roof of the former Smith Motors build, his feet planted wide as he braces himself. 

The sky before him is a beautiful, endless expanse. With the Smith building on the edge of the town, he can face out toward the unbroken desert that stretches out to where the curve of the world gives the illusion of the land and sky meeting. It's cloudless and the sun beats down against his bared chest. He can feel the heat of it in his veins and its invigorating. 

He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath. There's the slightest hint of a breeze and his nerves are so alight in anticipation that it almost makes him shiver. He bounces once, twice on the balls of his feet, ready to take off, ready to part ways with the ground and soar up into that boundless sky. Ready to-

"Okay, how the hell do I do this?" Sam turns back to Loki and Thor to find them wearing matching expressions of innocent attentiveness. "I mean, they're supposed to... There's supposed to be literal wings, right?"

"You have to summon them," Loki explains patiently, as though that is an explanation. 

"And how am I supposed to do that?" Sam realizes belatedly that he's braced one hand on his hip and accidentally done a very accurate impersonation of his mother.

Loki blinks, and doesn't answer. 

"Please tell me you know how to do that!" Sam tries very hard to pretend his voice isn't rising both in volume and octaves. 

"Surely it cannot be difficult," Thor tries helpfully, glancing between them. 

"Much of magic is centered on the power of one's will. Perhaps you must simply will them in existence?" The uncertain inflection at the end of Loki's sentence is far from comforting, but Thor nods gamely as though it makes sense. 

Thor crosses the roof to stand in front of Sam. He grips Sam's arms and his hands are reassuring, grounding in a way. "Think of what it is like to fly," Thor suggests, looking up earnestly into Sam's eyes. "Remember the feeling of it, the way the air around you is parted by the power of your wings."

Bizarre as it is to be looking down at Thor for once, his presence is calming, quelling the panic and frustration had begun to well up in Sam. He nods and takes a deep breath, letting the hot, dry air fill his lungs. He thinks about what it feels like to fly, to be free and unencumbered by the ground. It isn't like being weightless, in fact he is more aware of the weight of his own body when he doesn't have the ground to push back against. He thinks about the wind, brutal in the way that it whips into his eyes and steals his breath when he's moving at speed; how it buffets him, beating against his body as it flows around him, and the knowledge that his wings are there to cut through that air, to divide it and redirect its energy, to bend it to his purpose. 

It's spiraling that's the best, his favorite move. To angle his wings and circle, tighter and tighter, until the ground is rushing up toward him and with only a minor shift in posture he can break the circle to skim across the surface of the ground without submitting to it. The muscles in his back twitch reflexively and his eyes snap open.

His muscles keep twitching, struggling to adjust to the weight of bones and connective tissue that hadn't been there moments ago. Thor is beaming up at him, and it's only Thor's balancing grip on his hands that saves Sam from toppling backwards over the edge of the roof as he twists around to see the wings that now arch out from his shoulder blades. 

Loki has abandoned the lawn chair to stand a few steps behind Thor, his eyes glittering with delight. "I knew they would suit you," he comments, and there's an undeniable note of self satisfaction in his voice. 

Sam's wings flare out, an instinctual movement that spreads them wide so that they catch the faint breeze in the air. They span well over six feet and in the sunlight they shine like molten gold. The feathers taper at the tips of his wings; the coverts a darker golden brown along the line of bones that shape the wings before lightening to polished light amber along the primaries and secondaries. 

"They're magnificent," Thor says. He's beaming up at Sam and there's awe in his eyes that matches the more subtle glee in Loki's. Even after all the time they'd been together, being stared at like that by two gods makes Sam's stomach squirm. 

"This is so weird," Sam admits, unable to contain a note of childish glee. He reaches out to touch the feathers and shivers at the sensation as his brain struggles to process the new sensory feedback. There's the slightest breeze in the air and it ruffles through his feathers, making his wings instinctively twitch and flap a little. The pit of his stomach twists and then settles, a buzzing starting in the soles of his feet and rising through his whole body; he wants to fly, he _needs_ to fly. 

Thor smiles knowingly and releases Sam's hands. "Go on then," he urges, taking a step back. "Try them out." Thor wraps his arms around Loki's waist as they watch Sam, and Sam feels little bit stupidly like he's six again and his parents are watching him try to ride a bike without training wheels for the first time. 

Once again he faces the open sky. He edges a little closer to the edge of the roof, until his booted toes hang just over the edge and he can look down at the ground below. It isn't far, only one storey and with his training he could jump to the ground with hurting himself. But that isn't the point, the point is to leave the ground far behind. He concentrates and gives his wings an experimental flap. It's harder than he expects; in a way, it's exactly like moving his arm or his leg, the wings are a part of him and his brain can control them like any of his other limbs, except it's more like moving a third and fourth arm that, unlike his other limbs, he hasn't spent the past thirty plus years instinctively controlling. 

He figures out, fairly quickly, that if he tries too hard it won't work. If he concentrates too much he'll get lost in his head, in the strangeness and wonderment of it. So he takes a deep breath, and he accepts it. He doesn't let himself worry about _how_ to move his wings, he just tells his body to do it.

So he flaps his wings a few times, he bounces on the balls of his feet, and he jumps. 

For a moment, it's glorious. His wings flap, pushing against gravity and air and he can feel the stretch of muscle and sinew all the way down his back and around his ribs. He flaps hard, strong, powerful beats that forces down the air around him and lifts him up into the sky. 

Until they don't. 

He isn't sure exactly what goes wrong. He's flapping and flying and reveling in the freedom of the sky, and then the ground is a little too close and something in his back feels wrong, too tight, and one wing tries to flap without the other and then he's falling. He's half turned, unable to get any lift and he's panicking, his wings won't cooperate. The ground rushed up to meet him and his shoulder slams into the ground. He skids and rolls and lands with a face full of sand in a jumble of limbs and feathers. 

It takes a second and then Thor's boots impact the sand a few feet away. Thor kneels quickly beside him, hands careful and concerned as he rolls Sam over. "Sam? Are you all right?"

Sam sits up slowly with Thor's help. He's embarrassed and winded and he is definitely going to be sore, but, shifting each joint and limb carefully to verify, there's no real damage. "Well, that went better than my first flight with the old wings." He grins in a self-depreciating way, reassuring Thor not just with his words and his smile but by also squeezing Thor's hand which is still checking him over for injury. "Glad we're in New Mexico though. Asphalt would have been a lot less fun than this sand."

Thor offers Sam a hand and helps pull him to his feet. He manages to finish checking Sam for injury under the guise of helping him dust himself off; Sam isn't fooled but he tolerates it patiently. 

"Well, you certainly need to practice your landings." Loki's lips are twisted in a wry smile as he looks Sam over. 

"I'd like to see you try, hot shot," Sam grumbles. He's embarrassed and frustrated and he doesn't look at either of them as he tries to shake the sand out of his feathers. 

"Pay him no mind, Sam," Thor encourages. He ignores the Loki standing a few feet away in favor of shooting a glare at the actual Loki, who remains standing at the edge of the roof while his projection offers him a closer view. "He, perhaps, remains bitter over his own lack of success in the flying arts."

Loki's projection huffs before it disappears and the real Loki turns his back on them, presumably to return to his lawn chair. 

Thor winks at Sam as he returns his attention to him, brushing sand out if Sam's hair. 

"He's going to make you pay for that later," Sam warns him, but Thor only grins. 

"Mm, yes," he agrees, "hopefully in bed tonight."

"Great. Just keep your kinky revenge sex quiet and on your side of the bed, okay? I intend to sleep tonight." Sam bounces a little on the balls of his feet, shaking out his shoulder as he begins to psyche himself into taking a second try at flight. 

"I will do my best," Thor promises, with a look that is almost sincere. 

"I hate to intrude on your special flying club." Loki's voice is incredibly dry, and both Thor and Sam jump as neither of them had noticed his projection reappearing beside them. "But you might want to know, Sam, that your wings are built for soaring flight. Try finding the air currents and flapping less." 

Sam blinks, curling his wings around his body so that he can see them better, and that... makes a lot of sense. But Loki had retracted his projection again as soon as he'd finished offering his advice, before Sam could tell him he was right. 

"Okay then, air currents it is," Sam mutters, stretching out his wings and bracing himself. He glances at Thor. "Mind giving me a little lift to get going?"

Thor takes a few steps back and starts swinging Mjolnir obligingly, giving Sam an encouraging thumbs up with his other hand. Sam begins to slowly to flap his wings again, gradually building momentum, and he feels the wind Thor's providing catch in his feathers as his toes lift off the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

By the time the sun begins to set, Sam is exhausted, sore, and has more sand in extremely uncomfortable places than he had previously thought possible. But he has managed to stay in the air for a full fifteen minutes at a time, and then land, intentionally, on his feet, three times. 

Loki is waiting for him on the roof when he finally lands - only stumbling a little before Loki catches him. The two gods had spent the day alternating between cheering him on and amusing themselves, and Sam can't fail to notice the fresh hickies that peek out over the collar of Loki's shirt. 

Sam lets Loki ease him down onto one of the lawn chairs and drinks the bottle of gatorade that Loki pushes into his hands. The liquid is cool and refreshing despite the lack of cooler present on the hot roof, and he appreciates not for the first first time how cool it is to have a magic boyfriend. 

Loki sits on the chair opposite Sam's. His eyes trace the curve of Sam's wings as they rise half folded above his head. Sam knows that look in Loki's eyes and he can't help but grin as he finishes off his gatorade. He tosses the empty bottle aside and stands, taking his time in crossing the short distance between their chairs. 

"You know," Sam muses casually, "I don't think I've thanked you properly yet." He pauses as he comes to a stop between Loki's knees, watching as Loki's gaze does a slow rise from the low waistband of his jeans to gradually reach his face. From his seated position, Loki has to tilt his head back to make it all the way to Sam's face, and Sam likes looking down into Loki's expression which is somehow simultaneously sharp with desire and vulnerable with want. 

Sam doesn't draw it out though, uninterested in teasing for the moment. He straddles Loki's thighs, settling himself comfortably in Loki's lap. Loki's face is still unturned and Sam presses in close to align their torsos and kiss Loki at a downward angle. 

Loki hums, automatically lifting a hand to cup Sam's face and urge him deeper into the kiss. Sam complies happily, wrapping both of his hands around to bury his fingers in Loki's hair. As though mirroring the movement of his arms, Sam's wings also move, spreading and then curling forward until Sam and Loki are both encased in a feather dome. Sam's feathers block out most of the sharp sunlight, leaving them in dappled shadows and close air as though the atmosphere has shrunk to include only them. 

Loki's skin is cool to the touch and Sam is all too happy to press himself against Loki as much as he possibly can. His own skin is heated and damp with sweat from the exertion and exposure of his day of flight practice. Loki doesn't seem to care. As soon as Sam breaks the kiss for air, Loki sets himself to the task of licking the sweat from Sam's neck and shoulders, tasting and suckling with small hums of pleasure. 

Sam can feel how hard Loki is even through his jeans, and he can't help but grin at Loki's eagerness. "Thor's been teasing you again, hasn't he?" He asks, even though he knows the answer. Thor loves kissing like no one else Sam has even met, and he has a particular talent for occupying his partner with kissing so completely that hours pass before they even realize they're being wound up.

Loki hums in confirmation, not bothering to lift his lips from Sam's skin. "It's almost as though he's trying to make me angry," he muses, as though they didn't both know exactly what Thor was doing. "Lucky for me, I have other options." Loki rolls his hips pointedly, pulling a groan from Sam before he can bite it back. 

Sam's dick responds readily to Loki's offer. He's exhausted, and only moments before he felt nearly ready to collapse, but the adrenaline of flight is still buzzing in his vein and Loki's cool skin is more alluring than any bed Sam's ever experienced. He untangles the fingers of one hand from Loki's hair so that he can reach down between them for their belts. He knows it won't take much; they're both already so wound up, Loki thanks to Thor and Sam from the thrill of flight. 

It's a difficult angle and Sam has to move back, half standing so that they can both get their flies open enough to reach their dicks. Loki's long fingers make fast work of Sam's belt with an air of grace that makes Sam's fumbling almost embarrassing. But soon enough it doesn't matter because each has the other's dick in hand and their lips are sealed onto each other's once more as they jerk each other off. 

"You are magnificent," Loki pants against Sam's mouth. His spare hand reaches up Sam's back, stroking and kneading the skin until he reaches the juncture where Sam's wings meet his back. Loki's fingers trace the joint, following the lines of musculature and petting the soft downy feathers that bridge the gap between wings and back. 

Sam's entire body lights up. He jerks, a gasp pulled involuntarily from his lips and his eyes closing automatically. Loki pauses for a moment, assessing Sam's reaction, then he grins and strokes Sam's wing again. Sam can't truly describe the feeling that rushes through him at the sensation. It's a hot rush, like whiskey mixed with lightening streaking through his veins. It makes his breath come short and his balls tighten. He thrusts hard into Loki's hand, soft, increasingly frantic cries on his lips, which Loki swallows eagerly. 

It seems simultaneously seconds and an eternity before Sam's spilling over Loki's hand. Sam had nearly forgotten about his own reciprocating hand under the onslaught of sensation, but Loki was already wound up enough not to need much and he pushes himself into the grip of Sam's hand a few more times before he's hissing into Sam's mouth and his cum splatters Sam's chest. 

It's as if the rest of the world has fallen away. Sam presses his forehead against Loki's, reveling in the slightly stale air shared between them in the enclosed space shaped by Sam's wings. Neither of them speak for several minutes, instead communicating wordlessly through low pants and small, intimate touches. 

"Thank you," Sam says eventually, his voice low and rough. He presses a kiss to Loki's temple, savoring the cool touch of his smooth skin. 

"I am merely relieved to no longer have to watch you relying on Stark's machines." It's half teasing, but only half and Sam tightens his arms around Loki. 

"Technically, Tony only partially designed the wings. And they've never once failed me due to mechanical reasons."

Loki humphs unforgivingly. "That is hardly comforting," he refutes. 

Sam laughs, but before he can say anything else Thor's knuckles rap playfully against the back of his skull. "Delivery," Thor announces. Sam hadn't realized he was hungry, but when he lifts his head out of the soft enclosure of his wings and blinks through the comparatively too bright sunlight to see the stack of pizza boxes in Thor's hand, he's suddenly famished. 

With a flick of his wrist, Loki erases the evidence of what he and Sam had been up to, not that Thor is fooled. Sam, however, hardly notices in his eagerness to reach for the pizzas. 

They stay on the roof to eat, comfortably settled on the lawn chairs and watching the sunset. Sam eats an entire pizza by himself without any hesitancy as it occurs to him that organic wings will require organic fuel and he reminds himself to stock up on power bars. 

After they eat Sam heads to the shower. He takes his time, scrubbing every inch of himself and picking away the sand and grime that clings to him. He can feel the walls shaking and he knows Loki is getting his revenge for Thor's afternoon of teasing, so Sam stays under the warm spray a little longer, letting it relax him as he gives them some space. By the time Sam dries off and heads for the bedroom, Thor is a boneless heap sprawled on the bed and Loki is stroking his hair with a satisfied smirk. 

Loki winks at Sam, shifting himself and Thor enough to make room for him in their bed. The movement rouses Thor enough to push himself up on his elbows and grin at Sam. "I have a grievance to air," Thor announces, his words incongruently serious for his loose limbed, naked lounging. 

Sam raises an eyebrow as he tosses his wet towel in the hamper. Since neither Thor nor Loki generally felt the need for pajamas, Sam had also dropped the habit and is content to crawl onto the sheets naked as the day he was born. "What sort of grievance?" He asks, in a mock imitation of Thor's gravity, which feels absolutely ridiculous as he half falls into Loki's lap.

"Loki has already become intimately familiar with your new appendages, and I have not been offered equal opportunity." Thor sets his lips in a pout that is only as alluring as it is hilarious. 

"To be fair," Loki drawls, dancing possessive fingers over the tattooed lines on Sam's back, "I did make them. It seems right that I get the first chance to play with them."

Sam laughs and squirms away from Loki's touch ticklishly. He isn't sure if the tattooed lines are as sensitive as the wings themselves had proven to be, or if Loki had added a little extra sensation to his touch to tease Sam, but either way, he likes it. "Thor's right," Sam agrees, his attempt at solemnity ruined by his laughter, "it's only fair." He glances around the room, even though he already knows how big it is, just to double check. "There should be room enough in here for me to bring them out."

Thor sits up eagerly and Loki shifts back obligingly so that Sam can kneel at the center of the bed between them. Sam closes his eyes for a moment, shaking out the tension in his shoulders and taking a breath as he concentrates. He'd made sure to practice manifesting and putting away his wings a few times that afternoon, and it gets easier and faster each time he tries. This time it takes only about a second before he feels the subtle shift in the musculature of his back and the added weight of his wings unfurling.

Once Sam opens his eyes again, Thor reaches out almost reverently to stroke the line of bone that shapes the wing closest to him. "Magnificent," he murmurs, his eyes warm and delighted. 

They end up laying pressed close together in the bed. Thor and Loki lie side by side with Sam laying half between and half on top of them both. Loki tosses their usual bedding to the floor and instead Sam leaves his wings unfurled, spread out over the three of them like a downy blanket. Thor's fingers continue to tenderly stroke Sam's feathers and Sam feels his whole body go lax and makes a hum of contentment that rises up from so deep within him that Sam is pretty sure it comes from his soul. 

He's exhausted, his newly developed back and wing muscles aching from the day of practice. But it's a pleasant sort of ache, and between Thor's fingers in his feathers and Loki's in his hair, Sam hardly notices. He smiles drowsily at Thor, idly tracing the mark on Thor's chest. He rests his hand palm up against Thor's chest; the sight of their matching marks next to each other settles warmly in the pit of his stomach, two identical pairs of wings that nearly match in color despite the different shades of skin around them. 

Thor's fingers move from his feathers to Sam's head, blunt nails lightly scratching over his scalp. The sensation makes Sam stretch in a way that rolls all the way down his spine

On Sam's other side tiny sparks of light dance above Loki's head. Loki manipulates the little lights with idle flicks of his fingers as they shift into small glowing constellations.

Sam rolls his head to watch the show, but he's attention is quickly pulled from the lights to instead watch Loki's face, soft and relaxed in the dim illumination of the lights. It's still rare to see Loki so at ease, even when the three of them are alone, and Sam is mesmerized by it. 

Loki catches him watching a raises an eyebrow at him. "Yes?" He asks, his tone faintly amused. The lights form a ring above Loki's head like a halo and they reflect in Loki's eyes, bringing out their pale blue. 

Sam cups Loki's face, tracing the sharp line of his cheekbone. "I showed you mine, so show me yours?" It's a quiet, hopeful request. Ordinarily , Sam wouldn't dare ask, but he's sunk so deeply into a bubble of warmth and security, heavy and drowsy with it in a way that has made him almost forget there is a world outside of their bed. It's so intimate, this feeling as though they are all that exist in the universe, and he knows that to Loki what he's asking for is the deepest level of intimacy Loki has to share. 

Loki hesitates. The lights above his head flicker and the old defensiveness shutters his eyes, but only for a moment. 

"Please?" Sam's thumb touches the edge of Loki's eyebrow and his wings flex, wrapping more securely around Loki. The word is hardly even a whisper, as though if he speaks too loudly it will break the moment and they will be pulled back into the presence of the rest of the world. 

A small smile twitches Loki's lips, and his eyes go soft again. Without a word or anything else to herald the occurrence of magic, the skin beneath Sam's fingers deepens to its natural blue. It changes in a slow fade, creeping down from Loki's scalp across his face and neck until it covers his entire body. He's otherworldly, naked, the tiny lights creating a painting of shadowed hues of blue across his skin, highlighted by the thin raised lines that carve intricate symbols across his body. 

Sam's thumb still rests on the side of Loki's face, over the skin at his right temple where his mark stands out in a shocking white against the blue of the rest of his face. Sam can't help but to smile. He understands Loki's hesitance to show his true skin, but to Sam's eyes he has never been more beautiful and Sam relishes the sight as the greatest honor he could ever receive. 

On Sam's other side, Thor shifts, sitting up enough to lean over Sam and press a kiss to Loki's mark; Thor, too, relishing the rare opportunity to see it, even though they always know it's there beneath the glamor. He murmurs something in Loki's ear, too low for Sam to hear but it doesn't matter because the faint flush that rises to Loki's cheeks is enough as Thor settles back down on the pillows with a satisfied smirk. 

Sam nestles in close. Thor's arm reaches over him to wrap around his lower back and curl over Loki's hips, warm and heavy. Sam rests his head on Loki's shoulder, the blue skin a slightly different texture - dryer but soft - against his cheek than the illusion he's used to. It's perfect, their combined body heat and the covering of Sam's feathers wrapping them in a cocoon of comfort; sleep comes quickly, rising up to greet him as he sinks into it.


End file.
